Stocks weak as Brent crude plunges below $45

Markets (^DJI, ^GSPC, ^IXIC) are treading water here as a sinking oil trade has stocks struggling for direction. Catch The Final Round at 4 p.m. with Jen Rogers and Yahoo Finance markets correspondent Myles Udland and reporter Jared Blikre.

Winners and losers

Stocks in the red today include industrial firm Actuant after lowering its forward revenue and EPS guidance, Tex-Mex chain Chuy’s on a downgrade to neutral at Wedbush and Foot Locker, with shares of the retailer sinking as Goldman Sachs said its channel checks indicate Nike could be close to selling its products directly on Amazon.

Meanwhile, stocks ending the day in the green include La-Z-Boy as the recliner-maker posted a big beat on earnings and revenue and reported same-store sales growth of 2.4%; CA Technologies on reports that rival BMC Software is considering acquiring the company in a bid to combine the two largest US makers of IT management software; and Advanced Micro Devices, with shares of chipmaker popping on the release of a new series of high-performance data-center processors—a direct challenge to Intel.

‘RegTech’ disrupting Wall Street

First there was FinTech—financial techcompanies that use technology to disrupt and compete with traditional financial institutions—think everything from Lending Club to Venmo. Now a subset is growing rapidly on its own—”RegTech.” Tiffany Mazzone, compliance officer at Legg Mason joins us now to discuss a booming industry thanks to red tape.

Looking ahead

If it’s Thursday, it’s jobless claims. At 8:30 a.m. ET, we’ll get the figures for the week. The Street’s expecting 240,000 initial claims.

And we still have more earnings—Barnes and Noble and Carnival will report before the bell, and we’ll get Bed Bath and Beyond and Sonic after the close.

The Fed will begin releasing results from its annual stress test. Investors are hoping the results will allow the big banks to put over $150 billion toward stock buybacks, dividends and investments.